We’ve got some minor news to report surrounding 2019’s Jean-Luc Picard-centric Star Trek series to bring you today, thanks to a few production updates coming out of the West Coast this morning — which, as it turns out, will be the home to Patrick Stewart’s return to the franchise when production begins next year.
Star Trek production returns to California next year for the first time since filming wrapped on Star Trek Into Darkness in 2012, as a new report from the California Film Commission has revealed that the “Picard” series — still not yet officially named — has been granted a substantial $15.6 Million tax credit to film in the state, a hefty incentive to keep production local.
Like many mainstream media productions which have been setting up shop in places like Atlanta (home base to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and television series like The Walking Dead and Black Lighting, among others) and Vancouver (Supernatural, Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl, etc.), Trek has been operating outside of southern California for the last several years, seeking tax and other production cost savings in other locations.
Star Trek Beyond shifted to Vancouver for its North American shoot in 2015, and Star Trek: Discovery has of course been operating out of Toronto for the last two years, so the CA-centric plan for the “Picard” series is somewhat of a homecoming for the franchise, as all pre-Beyond installments in film and television were produced in the Golden State.
(In our pure speculation, it also seems reasonable that returning production to southern California was also likely an inticement for series star Patrick Stewart to come back to the role of Jean-Luc Picard.)
In other “Picard” production news, series executive producer Alex Kurtzman shared a little bit of an update on the development of the series with Entertainment Weekly, indicating that the writers room has now made it through the storytelling phase of about eight episodes of the first season of the show – and he noted how this renewed focus on the Picard character will present itself differently than Discovery’s take on Trek.
Without revealing too much about it, people have so many questions about Picard and what happened to him, and the idea we get to take time to answer those questions in the wake of the many, many things he’s had to deal with in ‘Next Gen’ is really exciting.
‘More grounded’ is not the right way to put it, because Season 2 of ‘Discovery’ is also grounded. It will feel more… real-world? If that’s the right way to put it. It’s an extremely different rhythm than ‘Discovery.’
[If] ‘Discovery’ is a bullet, ‘Picard’ is a very contemplative show. It will find a balance between the speed of ‘Discovery’ and the nature of what ‘Next Gen’ was, but I believe it will have its own rhythm.
We still don’t know when we’ll see Jean-Luc Picard back in action again — aside from CBS leadership’s hints towards a vaguely late-2019 projection — but we hope that we’ll learn more about the casting, story direction, and at least an official title soon enough.
In the meantime, what do you think about Kurtzman’s comments, and the return of Trek to sunny California? Share your thoughts in the comments below!